


Broken

by nowhere_dawn_death_phan



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_dawn_death_phan/pseuds/nowhere_dawn_death_phan
Summary: This is a fic based on the wharf explosion from the first movie. Anyway, this is something slightly new, because it’s based on the original draft of the first movie, which made me cry SO much when I read it, by the way.So yeah, this is based on that.Enjoy, I guess?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 44





	Broken

Holmes glances up, and the basket Lestrade’s pointing at is swinging, half-obscured by the still dissipating smoke. At first Holmes can’t tell what’s caught the Inspector’s attention, until the smoke clears a little further and he can see one of Watson’s arms hanging out over the lip of the wicker into the open air. 

Holmes tries to take a step back but there’s nowhere to go and he freezes. Panic grips him, shreds him to pieces from the inside out. Because from where he’s standing, he can see blood splashed across the basket. And there’s an eerie stillness despite the previous chaos. There’s no movement as Watson strains to sit up, no shake of his head as he orients himself, not even a twitch in his dangling fingers, which are usually so active. No indication of consciousness. No indication of life.

The gas tank is shredded, and near it sits what little remains of the collection of barrels Watson had used as protection from the barrage of gunfire. The heavy shrapnel that would have rained down upon him from the force of the blast. The jagged arrows of wood that would have been borne from the explosion, Holmes feels sick to even think. That basket must be thirty feet in the air easily, probably even more, still rocking with the force of the impact.

Slowly, with one of the police at the controls, the loading basket comes down into the waiting hands of the Yard, and Lestrade’s the first one ready for Holmes to come charging across towards them.  
He grabs him by the shoulders and forces him back a few long paces. He doesn’t know how things are looking at the minute, only that it’s not good, and if god forbid Watson’s dead, he wants to keep his body out of Holmes’s sight for as long as he possibly can.

When one of the men announces he’s alive, Lestrade allows his grip to loosen. He contemplates tightening it again when someone else answers “yeah, but not for much longer by the looks of him” but that’s all Holmes needs to hear and he shoves past him anyway, frantic and desperate, his hands clinging to the edge of the basket, tears building in his eyes.

And John.  
Oh god, John.  
Sprawled.  
Broken.  
He’s laying face up, and somewhat centralised in the basket, which can’t be anymore than four feet long and half of that wide. His left arm dangles over the edge of the basket, his right bent down by his side. His legs are awkwardly splayed, no attempt to shift them to a more comfortable position, as if he hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen.  
His shirt is bloody and ripped, and his hands and face are scratched and torn.

The unsettlingly slow rise and fall of his chest is almost imperceptible, even to Holmes’s keen eyes. Sherlock leans on the edge of the basket, his hand hovers over Watson’s shirt but he doesn’t dare touch him. From here he can tell John’s likely taken the brunt of the damage to his chest; he’s barely breathing. Definitely some broken ribs, maybe a punctured lung. He looks dead, and as much as it scares Holmes to admit, he knows realistically that he very almost is.

Watson’s slack face, pale beneath the blood and dust, is turned towards Holmes, limp on his neck and lolling with the shaking of the basket.  
His hair is sticky and matted, and he leaves trails of blood behind on the wicker as the basket sways.  
His mouth is closed, but a bubbling trickle of blood dribbles from between the corner of his lips and splashes onto his shirt. Not a lot. But enough to make Holmes uneasy. He hopes it’s from something as simple as a dislodged tooth or bitten tongue rather than anything more severe, but he doubts it.

And his eyes, those bright blue eyes, are half-closed and vacant, staring without seeing.  
It’d be a grisly sight for anyone to behold, but the fact he recognises the broken man in front of him, the man such an integral part of his life that the mere idea of Holmes having to see a day without him was long considered unfathomable, makes it so much worse.  
And Holmes takes Watson’s hand in his, gentle, careful not to break him any further, and feels for sure that this is it. That this is the end. Once and for all. This is where John Watson dies. Not on a battlefield in glory and honour, not draped in the colours of his country with his head held high. But here, lying in the loading basket of a crane, with the man who means more to him than anyone else clinging to his hand as if that could make him stay just a little bit longer.

And Lestrade’s men lift him clumsily from the basket, by the collar of his jacket and the seams of his trousers and as John sags in their unsteady grip, Holmes wants to slap them away and clutch Watson to his chest and beg them to be gentle with him, to be kind, because that’s far more broken a person than he’s seen in a long time.  
But he doesn’t, because Lestrade’s hand on his elbow pulls him away from the group, and as he’s settled on a stretcher, Watson makes an involuntary noise of barely suppressed agony that to Holmes is the most terrible and wonderful sound all at once.

And he wants nothing more than to cradle that head and whisper apologies and comb his hands through John’s hair and wipe the blood from his face and see those two blue eyes shine for him just once more in case he never can again. But he satisfies himself with keeping hold of John’s hand and walking the length of the wharf with him, hoping and praying to feel some movement against his fingers, no matter how weak.  
He doesn’t look at John, because to look means to accept, and he isn’t quite ready to do that just yet. Isn’t quite ready to face the consequences of his own actions; whatever they may be.

John is loaded into a carriage that waits at the end of the wharf, and as Holmes tries to climb up to sit beside him, he’s pulled back down. Lestrade shakes his head at him sadly and jerks his thumb in the direction of the row of warehouses that sit silently behind them. “We need you here, Holmes.” Sherlock partly wants to break down in tears, partly wants to ask Lestrade if he doesn’t think Watson needs him right now too, and partly wants to bounce the inspectors head off of the nearest flat - and preferably hard - surface. 

But he doesn’t. He leans against the wall, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and watches as with thumps and bangs and urgent yells that he doesn’t want to know the cause of, his Boswell is carted off into the cold dark evening and Holmes’s left feeling with a horrible certainty that there’s much much worse to come.  
And Lestrade, catching a glimpse of Holmes’s face as he turns his collar up against both the spit of rain and the possibility of losing Watson, decides he’d like to be as far away from him as possible when he finally catches up to Blackwood.


End file.
